EXPERIMENTATION WITH SPRAY EXPANDING FOAM
So today i was reading this "bible" i got from the library titled Sculpture in plastic by nicholas roukes. Came across a page featuring plastic foams A.K.A expanded/cellular plastics.
The application of this material is available in two categories: Solid and Pour in place liquid.
The most commonly used tyes are the solid foams as they are less toxic and complex.The solid plastic foams come in spongy or rigid varieties depending on their density.
PROPERTIES OF FOAMED PLASTICS
1) Low thermal conductivity
2) Fire resistant
3) Extremely light weight
FUNCTIONS OF FOAMED PLASTICS
1) Boat flotation devices
2) Thermal and architectural insulation
3) Display and novelty fabrication
4) packaging materials
BASIC FAMILY OF FOAMED PLASTICS
1) Cellulose acetate
2) Epoxies
3) Phenol-formaldehyde
4) Polyethylene
5) Silicones
6) Urethanes
7) Vinyls
As part of my experimentation, i wanted to work with some readily available and affordable materials. so i decided to purchase some cheap expanding plastic from bunnings.
Intention was to try to understand how this medium worked and what are the possible visual outcomes i could achieve.
HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED:
Freshly sprayed
The pros:
1) The medium triples in size within a minute it is being sprayed.
2) The stickyness of the medium suggests that medium can possibly be used to bond other materials together.
3) When it was wet, it was really blobby. Could be a good medium for gravitational works.
The cons:
1) When the foams came out of the straw, it was uncontrollable and difficult to control the direction and flow of the medium. Foam had lots of space in them.
2) The foam was unbelievably sticky to touch , which means i could not manually juxtapose the medium (hence the blob)
3) The texture was not visually pleasing in my opinion. It had lots of dentures and rough patches in them. It could have been the way i released the foam that resulted in the dentures.
4) I tried to spray foam into moulds, however it was too sticky and was impossible to remove from mould without breaking the foams.
Being an optimist, i decided to give the texture a shot by sanding it down with a sanding block. Does help improve the disastrous texture a little. But i did not enjoy the "gaps" between the foam.
Tapping on the weight of the fresh spary foam, I decided to spray some on a standing canvas to see what effects could i get.
Feeling a little inspired by Artist Louise Zhang, i was also curious to see how the foam would react with paint, so i Added bits of acrylic paint to the dripping foam and allowed gravity to do the rest.
P.S: The marbled colour effect was quite an unexpected turnout.
T.O.T.D
The spray on expanding foam was a really interesting but challenging medium to work with. I was not really excited or keen with the outcomes of this experimentation hence i decided to move on to a different medium for experimentation. I might probably revisit this medium if i can purchase the liquid pour-ons. Bearing in mind the cons of the materials :)